HOLiDAY ROMANCE

The one that (thankfully) used me for character development

She told me she was only in town for a week. I didn’t know that would be enough to heal us.

Low stakes love is the key to ending your overthinking. You crave, you yearn. Then you rationalize. You talk yourself out of it, spiral into what-ifs, and miss the moment.

But low-stakes love doesn’t ask for forever. It just invites you to feel again. And it lets you know, it’s okay to risk it all even if it doesn’t work out forever. That all the answers to your heart lie in surrendering to the present.

I learned this two years ago, during two weeks spent in Lisbon.

Prior to this I hadn’t dated anyone seriously in over two years, after the tumultuous end to my last relationship. That one was a slow burn of an ending, high school sweethearts who broke up, got back together again, broke up, got back together again, broke up, etc. It was particularly painful because much of the friction didn’t come from our incompatibility, but mores her parents, her culture/religion, our career paths veering in different directions. Like the love was torn from us, not extinguished.

Over the couple years that followed I had an emotional hangover that creeped into all my romantic interactions. Every girl I met, I compared to her. Some didn’t measure up. Others I placed on pedestals. No one stood a chance. I hooked up with long time friends, sacrificing our bonds for a blur of short term pleasure. Instead of honoring the friendships by chasing the sensual consummation, it only led to more confusion and drifting apart. I severed connections that were spiritually nourishing in the name of carnal curiosity.

Some of my other experiences also helped place me in this romantic straightjacket, this deep hole with healthy love a far away glimmer. I fucked girls with boyfriends (both knowingly and unknowingly), I fucked girls who were superiors to me professionally, girls who I was in charge of, girls who didn’t care about me, girls I didn’t even like, girls who were gorgeous but empty, girls who were energy vampires. I was fully responsible for this spiral, for engaging in these vapid behaviors that were draining simulations for the real connection I was looking for. Yet as lonely as I felt, it was also difficult to pull myself out of it, to grab the controls and pull upwards.

It was my panic attacks that finally did me in, made me take stock and own up to my actions. After years of running a business, working 7 days a week, feeding my ego, deflecting my feelings and stress, centering my life around my work, and drifting away from my truest loves of art, expression, family, friends (all the realest sparks), my body was punishing me. I had built up my (supposed) ideal life and when it wasn’t fulfilling me, when it was slipping away because God let me have the success to think that my greatest wishes were coming true, and then gradually let it crumble to show me that it was not where my spirit was truly aligned, I started to pass out consistently. I’d get these horrible headaches, starry vision, shallow breathing and just faint right then and there, in the office, on the way to work, home alone. It had gotten so bad I would cross the sidewalk if a woman so much as appeared in front of me, on the same block.

I did all the medical tests, but deep down I knew there was nothing wrong with me physically. My therapist saved her “I told you so” but I could read it on the tender smile on her face when I admitted to her that I figured my problem was mental. I booked my first real vacation in years, and fled to my parents, who had just moved to a beach town in Portugal for two weeks.

Every morning I’d go read in the garden near their house. If you know Portugal, you know everything is built around their varying elevation. This garden swooped down a hill, with cobblestone paths and stairs cutting across the sweeping grass, the fields of flowers. There were little hideaways with benches, large plants swooping over and their dewy leaves dripping on you. I breathed. I breathed a lot. I rediscovered my breath, and that it was there and I could feel it and control it and let it go and just have it follow its own rhythm, not the one I tried to force upon it or suppress.

I also read Crime and Punishment. I recoiled at some of the nastier parts of Illoysha’s psyche that I identified with. I sat in silence staring in the mirror at my own neuroticism and narcissism. I cringed at the spiritual exhaustion he faced, feeling it within me. But most of all, I was turned on.

Yes.

The passage in which Sonya reads the Bible to Illoysha...it all clicked for me. The redemption, the salvation, the cleansing, from the feminine divinity. Illoysha didn’t have to be perfect to be loved, quite the opposite. In all his vulnerability, in all his ugly humanness, he found a connection that exalted him, not through ignoring his faults, not through painting a rosier picture than reality, but simply by listening, forgiving and guiding. I didn’t know it then, but that moment in the garden was the first time in a long time that I opened the door for someone new.

I remember the day I finished the book, after my first week there. I remembered little else of what I did that first week. I think I spent most of it in my head, living in St. Petersburg in a feverish state, looking over my shoulder. I closed the book, a couple of tears falling on the front over as I looked up at the sun.

The garden overlooked the coastline, where a large green ferry would take people to the peninsula across the way, with its resort and private beaches. My mom had joined me on this particular morning and she was behind me, butterfly chasing. My grandmother was a big fan of butterflies and always told us that she would reincarnate as one if given the chance. I didn’t care to wipe my tears away. My mom eventually turned to face me and came over wordlessly to hug me. I buried my head in her stomach and told her I felt so lonely, so far away from everyone, including myself, and that I just wanted to be loved for who I was. She said nothing. Mothers seem to have that sixth sense, knowing when you need a monologue, a scolding, a one liner, a joke, or just their presence.

The cry was a good start, but I spent the rest of that day in my room on the ground. I let my body fold itself into various positions. Sometimes I’d be draped across the mint green couch, breathing slowly. Other times I’d be strewn on the floor hyper ventilating. I periodically would stare at myself in the wooden arched mirror that leaned against the wall and sat on the floor. I was being reborn, as if my body was a costume that I just been fitted for. I stared at my palms, wiggled my fingers. I pulled my eyelids down, I ran my fingers through my hair. I hugged myself. I wrote down all the things I feared, had been running from, was insecure about. I ended with a violent laughing fit, the type that ends with you doubled over, silently choking.

I slept 14 hours that night.

The next day I woke up feeling much lighter. The skin shedding was in full effect. Many of the thoughts I had yesterday seemed insignificant in the light of the new day. I turned to grab the book out of habit and realized it was done. I would have to go out and create my own story.

Later that day I took the train in 40 minutes to Lisbon, in search of adventure. I ended up at this oyster bar on top of a hill. A small place, only five spots at the bar and three small tables behind them. Low red lighting, large hanging lamps, with mustachioed and tattooed bartenders. 2000s American R&B intermingled with bossa nova on the speakers. It was happy hour, which meant oysters were half off. I spent a good hour in there talking to the owner, the bartenders, the French couple next to me on vacation, the gay Brazilian man who was waiting for a date. I knew I was feeling good when I stepped outside with the owner to smoke a cigarette, something I never do. Four tequila sodas and free flowing conversation will do that to ya.

I saw her coming up the hill, a white crop top and a long floral maxi skirt. She had rich, expressive features. Deep brown eyes, a warm golden brown complexion, and thick (I mean thick) long hair. She wiped the sweat above her lip and looked up at the sign of the bar as she rummaged around for her lip gloss. I kept talking to the owner but kept my eye to the side looking at her.

She ducked in and sat down in the spot I had been sitting at, where I left my red notebook. The Brazilian man had made a comment to her about me being there and as I followed her in I saw her startle and stand up, as if I had caught her stealing something. I smiled and told her it was okay, she could take the seat but only if she let me buy her a drink. The Brazilian took his hint like a good wingman and moved over to the open table by the window, offering me a wink as I slotted in to his spot.

She was on “hols.” I could’t get over that or her British accent. She was Punjabi in origin, her parents settling in the outskirts of Birmingham. A speech therapist by trade, she moonlighted as a DJ in local clubs.

The clock went round and round. I slowed down on the drinks or else I wasn’t going to make it. She had come to visit her friend who had recently moved there, but her friend was having a fight with her boyfriend which is why she went on a solo excursion. I listened intently, captivated by the way she would sip her drink and leave lip stick marks on the straw and then delicately rub them off. She told me all these stories of the students she worked with, and I soaked it in, lighting up at her tenderness. It made me wonder why I had missed out on this so long. I suppose I wasn’t ready.

By the time we were aware of the time the bar was completely packed, with the crowd spilling out onto the street. It was nearly midnight. She checked her phone and she had many missed calls from her friend. She stepped out to the street to take the call, and returned, pushing her way through the crowd and doing her best to yell over the loud noise to tell me she had to go. I followed her outside and we lingered around the corner, sitting on a stoop sharing a cigarette. Her friend apparently wanted to have a revenge night, go out to a club where she knew guys who made her boyfriend jealous were going to be at. She rolled her eyes at this but told me it was her sisterly duty to comply. Especially since her friend had not responded well to her honest advice to break up the toxic relationship.

We reached the part of the night where were both playing cat and mouse with our lip glances. I’d catch her briefly looking at mine and she’d dart her eyes away, then I’d take the opening to look at hers until she caught me. Back and forth, we went this way for a few minutes, the tension growing. She picked some imaginary lint off my jeans and asked me what my plans were for the rest of the week. I said that depended on when she was free. She looked at me and smiled. I looked down at her lips and looked up, this time holding the eye contact.

Even though I had kissed many women in the previous two years, this kiss made me feel like whatever I did with them was all pretend. This was a kiss. It contained real hope, but also real risk.

We continued kissing, my running my fingers through her hair, she stroking my arm. Unfortunately we were interrupted again by her friend calling to ask where she was. She rubbed the edge of her lip slowly with her middle finger while on the call, assuring her friend she would be there soon. She ended the call and gave me a pouty face. We stood and I kissed her again, pushing her against the door, slowly taking her hand and moving it up so it was over her head. This was interrupted by us hearing the door unlocking, as an old Portuguese woman stepped out and glared at us adjusting our clothing.

I gave her my number and as we waited for her Uber I held her hand as she rested her head on my arm. She told me she would text me tomorrow and we would make plans to see each other again.

Lo and behold—tomorrow arrived in the span of two hours. Her friend had tired herself out with her rage and ended up calling it an early night. I awoke at nearly four AM with a call from her. There was a drunken giggle before she let me know she was headed back to her hotel and she would love to see me there if I wasn’t too tired. Too tired?

I ended up getting there before her. She stepped out of the Uber and into my arms and we couldn’t stop making out the entire way up to her room. The lobby of the hotel was empty and I kissed her collarbones as we laid on the couch, I kissed her stomach as I knelt in the elevator, I grabbed her hair and gently swept it aside as I kissed the back of her neck while she inserted the keycard.

She went into the bathroom and came out in only a pair of lace pink panties. She pushed me on the bed and I sat there with the biggest dumbest grin on my face.

By the time we finished the sun was fully beaming through the blinds. I couldn’t stop with her. She couldn’t stop with me. We sat there in our sweat, her curled up on me stroking my beard, me burying my face in her hair which smelled like coconut.

She told me about her last relationship, which had ended six months ago. It was eerie how it mirrored my own. It felt like I was talking to my ex girlfriend in a way. It made me perceive myself in a way that I never had been close to. It tore open the wound I had and then rubbed a salve in it and stitched it back up. She told me how her ex had embedded her with a madonna-whore complex she was trying to shake. My own ex had imprinted that in me as well. She cried to me about how she was scared she would never find someone that would love her the same way again. She said she had tried talking to other men but they all scared her, or creeped her out. Or if she did like their personality, she wasn’t physically attracted to them. I was the first one that reminded her there was a chance. I teared up with her and hugged her tight. We fell asleep this way.

When we awoke we went for more rounds, and then hopped into the shower. This was how we spent the rest of our week. She would spend her days with her girlfriend, and then call me over late to spend the night. The sex was incredible, but what I remember most was the music.

After we’d finish we would shower together and she would play her playlists on this cheap bluetooth speaker. At first I was most impressed by how similar our taste was. Despite growing up with very different childhoods and in different countries, it seemed like she was my musical twin. But then, she weaved in songs that I had never heard before and I was further blown away. This was the soundtrack of the feminine divinity that was pinching my cheek and telling me it was going to be okay, that was dancing with me in the dark, that was telling me to put me to spit in her mouth and spank her, that was brushing my curls away from my forehead and kissing it. I still listen to her playlists to this day.

And how did it all end? With a big laugh, a big laugh that had tears in the eyes, tears that streamed down slowly and we wiped off one another’s cheeks. I waited with her in the lobby for her ride to the airport, an early Saturday morning. She rued that I didn’t live near her, that what we had could have been something. I felt the same but we also just felt grateful that we had something to be sad about, something worth cherishing.

I put her bag in the back and opened the door for her. She stood there looking up at me and we simply smiled and hugged, rocking back and forth. She rolled down the window and blew a kiss as the car pulled away. I caught it and plastered it on my cheek.

That kiss was the key, the keys to heaven. When I went home the next week, I met someone who has become the most important lover in my life so far. Someone who I could not have met and loved and accepted and fought for and grown with if my heart hadn’t been opened. It was that week in Lisbon that led me to the greatest relationship in my life so far.

But what she was to me was not just the bridge to my own self acceptance, and healthier relationship with women—she was splendid in her own self. That week was beautiful on its own, not just for what it brought after. I recently caught up with her and funny enough... she just started a relationship a few months ago, around the time that my own ended. I share some sort of cosmic circularity with this girl.

And if I ever I feel myself drifting far away from my own cravings for the real, for the raw, for the pain and the pleasure, for the erotic and the intimate, for the tender and the emotional—I play my favorite song she showed me. I had heard it before, the original album version, a melancholic interlude, devoid of any drums, just a haunting one minute solo. But the version she showed me was a more upbeat—an afrobeats remix.

Same words, new feelings.

Sometimes love doesn’t last—but the music stays. And when it plays, I remember the week I learned how to feel again.

I was outside everyday

Tryna make it home to ya babe

When I get on it's gon' be amazing

When we get it on it's amazing

Let's talk about us if you'll hear me out

(Yeah)

They only love me 'cause they see me getting money now

Fuck the whole front row at the show if you ain't there

Don't nobody got you like I do

(But you know that)

Can't nobody patch you up like new

I know your flaws I know what makes you who you are, girl

(I know what you're all about)

I wish I had all the answers to heal your heart